The deep end of the wrestling ring

Press, 18 April 1980, Page 11

The deep end of the wrestling ring

In tonight’s episode of “The Deep End” on TVI Bill Manson enters the realm of professional sport and attempts to work his way up to his final aim — to last at least one round in tire professional wrestling ring. The idea behind the programme was seriously to determine how far Bill could get in 10 weeks towards achieving this aim, and initially Bill was quite keen on the idea. Only now does he realise what he was letting himself in for.

A professional wrestler. Steve Rickard, agreed to take Bill on for 10 weeks full-time training. Bill wasn’t exactly in the peak of fitness and his initial introduction to training at the gym left him feeling extremely sore and stiff; but amidst cries of “No gain without pain” and “Make it hurt” Bill slowly built up his fitness and his weight. Next came the actual training sessions under the direction of Steve’s son, Rick. Steve had decided that there was no way that Bill could be taught how to win a fight in such little time so all they could do was teach Bill

how to defend himself. Bill slowly and very painfully worked his way towards his final showdown in the ring. He established for himself a character by the name of “Dr Mindbender” under whose name and image he would fight. Finally after the 10 weeks training, Bill was still a long way from profesional wrestling standards, but armed with the awesome power of Dr Mindbender, Bill entered the ring.